A series of construction and improvement projects received lots of attention and scrutiny during the Sierra Sands Unified School District Board of Education meeting Thursday.

The first project discussed was to negotiate a contract to look into the heating and cooling systems of two SSUSD schools. A recent engineering survey done at all of the school sites in the district showed some of the heating and cooling systems of Monroe Middle School, Burroughs High School and Vieweg Educational Center had been installed “in a substandard manner.” There was some concern whether this would pose health and safety risks to the staff and students while they are in the buildings. While the schools begin looking into the situation, they need some extra help.

“We recognized that in order to do the full remediation we would need the services of an architect,” said Chief Financial Officer Elaine Janson. “We would have to go through [the Division of the State Architect] to make sure all of our drawings were appropriate and all of the measurements we were taking were appropriate as well.”

The proposed contract would focus on Monroe Middle School and Vieweg Educational Center. According to Janson, the maintenance staff has found a temporary safe solution, which would lead to a full remediation at BHS later. The contract would be handled by Superintendent Joanna Rummer until her retirement on June 30. The board unanimously agreed to the proposal.

The next item was related to the contract and requested authorization to use Inyokern School Financing Authority Dollars to help pay for the work. According to Janson, it would not exceed $195,000. This was also unanimously approved.

Another item discussed was a request to incur costs for a modernization project at BHS. During the initial consideration of the project’s proposal, the Office of Public School Construction and the city of Ridgecrest gave feedback on the design of the parking lot. Response to this feedback would require work, which was not included in the original plan. The extra work would cost approximately $8,500.

There was some concern about giving the money for this. According to board member Tom Pearl, it was the responsibility of the architects who worked on the design to take this into consideration, and he was reluctant to give them the money.

Janson explained the school was locked in discussions about the funds and wanted approval so they could move forward with the project.

“The reason we bring it to you now is because we want to be able to move forward without being frozen in place,” Janson said.

Board president Kurt Rockwell noted how they could deny the funds, but doing so could lead to a back-and-forth dispute with the architects and contractors over the money. After consulting with their attorneys, outside of the meeting, the board determined the work was legally outside the scope of the project.

Page 2 of 2 - Rockwell wanted to get a better idea of who was responsible for the mixup in the design and whether it was the architects, the school or the DSA. Janson explained the parking lot design went through numerous revisions and was changed by each group who looked at it.

“The parking lot had to be redone so many times because every time we sent it someplace, somebody didn’t like it,” Janson said.

It was also noted there were some changes made by the state architect that nobody knew about until after the final approval date. It was pointed out a number of these problems were fairly understandable, since this was a fairly new type of project in the state and many people were figuring some of it out as they went.

Pearl said he was concerned about the loose ends cropping up in the various projects discussed and how they affected things with many of them still in such early stages. He requested the district staff take these situations under consideration and make sure to keep an eye out on including and addressing the issues in the future.

“I’m worried about the diligence with which we’re getting started,” Pearl said.

After everyone’s concerns were addressed the motion was put to a vote. The use of the funds was unanimously approved.

The next meeting of the SSUSD Board of Education will be Thursday, July 17.